


Corruption of the Fundamental

by a_fearsome_thing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Horror, Gen, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 23:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15375885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_fearsome_thing/pseuds/a_fearsome_thing
Summary: When Shiro is taken from his job as a security guard and goes missing for a year, the team will stop at nothing to get him back. They finally find him, but after a year as an unwilling subject in Haggar's experiments, he's not the same person they remember.





	Corruption of the Fundamental

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my work for the Voltron Gen Mini Reverse Bang, and I got the honor of coming up with a story based on the art of the incredibly talented radishcakeholes. Once they post it, I'll link it here in this fic!
> 
> You should all see it; it's amazing. 
> 
> Also, a million thanks to my beta, scifikimmi, who is fantastic.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

There’s a light on at the end of the hall, and Shiro shakes his head, grinning.

Allura’s working late again.

The hallway to his right is still empty when he checks again, moving on towards her lab to play his part in their far-too-frequent ritual.

She works too hard, and she doesn’t know how to give herself a break.

He pushes at the door, teasing as it swings open, “Doctor, I told you we had to stop meeting like this.”

Dr. Honerva Daibaa stares back at him with an unfamiliar man at her side, and Shiro freezes on the threshold, hand still on the door.

His skin prickles.

He’s never liked Honerva as much as the other researchers, based on the few interactions he’s had with her. She tends to dismiss him as brainless muscle and doesn’t really deign to speak to him, which he’s more than alright with. She’s coldly ambitious, and he doesn’t need to defend his intelligence or his burgeoning master’s degree in astrophysics to someone who doesn’t care.

He’s never thought of her as violent, and he’s never been afraid of her, but his hand comes to rest on his taser as wrongness thickens the air in the room.

He doesn’t trust her, but he trusts his instincts.

“What are you doing here so late, Dr. Daibaa?” he asks, keeping his tone light. His gaze sweeps the room, noting the boxes of papers and files cluttering the desks, the hard-drive in Honerva’s hand, and the towering man at her side who he knows for sure didn’t check in with security. “And who is this?”

He steps forward, hand still on his taser and the other edging toward his radio. He keeps his eyes locked on Honerva and the stranger, whose muscles bulge as he crosses his arms and looks down his nose at Shiro.

A shoe scuffs the floor behind him.

Shiro whips around, barely catching glimpse of a behemoth of a man before the butt of a gun strikes him across his head and sends him spinning to the ground, hard.

His vision blurs and his ears ring as the world struggles to right itself again.

Footsteps approach him and pause. A sturdy boot nudges him in the side.

A gruff voice asks, “What do we do with him?”

Rustling papers and tapping keys drift over in the silence that follow the question. Eventually, a bored voice answers, “Bring him with us. We’ll need a subject, and he seems decent enough.”

Shiro groans out a protest, pulling his heavy, clumsy limbs under himself to push back to his feet.

He makes it to his knees before the gruff man returns and kicks him onto his back, drawing another deep groan from him. He aches.

From his back, he has a better view of the room and the feral smile looming far above him. Fear sinks deep in his gut at the gun pointing at his face.

“I don’t know if you got lucky or not, kid,” the man says with cruel laughter lurking in his voice.

So focused on the gun aimed right between his eyes, Shiro doesn’t notice the other man’s approach until the sharp sting of a needle entering his arm casts a haze over the world.

And then it is dark.

*~*~*ONE YEAR LATER*~*~*

Keith throws open the door and tosses his bag on the nearby table.

“Please tell me that someone has something today,” he says as he gracelessly flops down on the couch in Allura’s apartment. The cushions attempt to swallow him and he can’t be bothered to struggle against their pull.

Lance and Hunk look back at him, Hunk’s face apologetic as he shakes his head and Lance shrugs without much enthusiasm. They’re all frustrated, so Keith does his best to keep the growl in his chest and not take it out on them with mixed success—it comes out sounding more like a groan than anything.

His arrival draws Coran into the room, laden with snacks and grinning beneath his mustache.

“Chin up, troops!” He lays down sliced apples and chips and what may be guacamole—or possibly jello. Hunk studies it with a judgmental eye. “You’re getting closer every day!”

“Yeah,” Lance says, failing to put any real heart into it. He slouches further into his seat and ends up tipping closer to Hunk. “Maybe Pidge or Allura has something.”

The door flies open again and slams into the backstop, bouncing with the force of it. As if summoned by her name, Allura storms in like a fury only to pause a few steps into the room, close her eyes, and take a deep breath. The tension leaks out of her all at once and leaves her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. She avoids looking at any of them as she gently closes the door so that she can lean heavily against it, her eyes downcast. “It has been a year and there has not been a single hint of anything resembling my research in any scientific community. It is nearly unheard of to keep a project silent for so long.”

The small bubble of hope that Allura had heard something pops within Keith’s chest and releases a cold bloom of despair.

It’s been a full year now since the last time any of them saw Shiro. The last time Keith had seen him, he’d given a half-hearted wave as Shiro sprinted out the door to make it to his night shift at Allura’s lab, not even bothering to look up.

The last real lead they’d had was when Pidge found Honerva—Haggar—4 months ago. It had seemed so promising at the time.

Now all it is is another dead end.

Keith balls his hands into fists and presses them against his eyes, “There has to be something that we’re missing!”

He can’t be dead.

He can’t be.

Keith refuses to believe that he’s dead.

His eyes burn from the pressure of his hands on them.

Everyone jumps at a loud crash from the hall, and Allura startles out of the way, just managing to avoid getting clipped by the door as a disheveled but enthusiastic Pidge spills inside.

She’s rubbing a bright red mark on her face, not having expected to not meet resistance as she barreled through the door, and she glares briefly at the innocent wood—Allura carefully does not look guilty—before a smile overtakes her face.

“I found something,” she announces, triumphant.

It lands like a bomb and the rest of them explode into movement. Coran bursts out of the kitchen while Allura clasps her hands in delight and Lance, Hunk, and Keith leap to their feet.

“You found Shiro?” Keith demands, circling around the love seat and crowding close to her.

She pushes past him and pulls out her laptop, setting it down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“Maybe.” She opens up the computer and adjusts her glasses while it loads. Impatience practically leaks through her fingers. The others all pile in close. “We know Haggar shows up every day and goes to her lab, and she basically never goes anywhere else. We checked there, and Shiro’s not in that lab. So where could he be? The blueprints don’t show any kind of secret room at all, so he must be somewhere else. Only that doesn’t make sense.”

She’s talking in circles and it’s trying Keith’s patience. “Get to the point, Pidge!”

Keith makes an impatient noise. “We thought of that, too, Pidge. We looked. The lab is in the corner of the building and the dimensions fit. There’s nothing there.”

Pidge knows they already chased this dead end, so why is she wasting their time revisiting it when Shiro is still missing?

She smirks, saying, “That’s because it’s not next to her lab. It’s underneath it.” A few strokes of the keyboard brings up a 3-d layout of Galra Laboratories. “I checked the building’s energy usage, and more power comes from Haggar’s section of the building than anywhere else. When I focus the grid a little more…” A couple more clicks, and the building lights up, a pool of green over Haggar’s lab. As the diagram rotates, it concentrates in the basement. “I checked. There’s nothing in the basement but storage—nothing that should use that much power. The backup generator isn’t even on that side of the place. And there’s a wall where there shouldn’t be. It shorts the end of the building by a good 30 ft!”

They all stare at her as she beams back at them.

“Pidge, you’re a genius,” Lance exclaims.

“Oh man, I love that big brain of yours,” Hunk says, sweeping the grinning girl into a bear hug.

Keith collapses back against the couch as relief rushes through him and leaves him weak. Finally, after months of nothing, they have something new.

They might have Shiro.

He closes his eyes, overwhelmed, but is jolted back to the room when Hunk grabs hold of his arm and yanks him into their hug. Allura and Coran rush across the room to join them, the hope in the room warm and palpable.

Keith is the first to pull away, and determinations blazes to life in his chest. The others have the same fire in their eyes.

“We need to get into that room.”

~*~*~INTERLUDE*~*~

When the haze of drugs wears off, the pale blue lighting seeping through Shiro’s eyelids sinks into his brain as wrong.

Unfamiliar.

He opens his eyes and frowns at the odd colored lights, the long tables, the computers, the tanks. It’s a lab. Whose lab?

He absently pushes himself up onto his elbows, only—he can’t. There are thick bands over his wrists and ankles, trapping him on the table. He tugs at them and there’s barely any give. They rattle against the metal bar lining the side of the table.

Tension thrums through him, and he pulls harder.

What happened?

A flash of memory—Dr. Daibaa, strange men, a gun. They were stealing Allura’s research.

Why did they take him?

Fear pierces like a cold needle through his heart. A test subject. They said something about needing a test subject.

His breath catches and skips, and he forces himself to slow down, closing his eyes and breathing through his nose. His head clears enough to think, and he works to remember as much as he can of every conversation he’s ever had with Allura about her work.

She’s working with zebrafish. Her schedule is often ruled by the time of day they like to reproduce. She’s excited about their ability to regrow pieces of their hearts and spinal cords, like a salamander’s tail. She would have used salamanders because they have more breadth of limb regeneration, but their life cycle isn’t as conducive to research.

She wants to do work that could benefit those who had damaged or lost organs, or amputees.

She wants to use their own DNA to help cure them.

She feels bad about the poor fish and how she has to damage them to watch how they fix themselves.

Fear evolves into blinding terror. His heart hammers and his breath comes in gasps. Static drowns out his thoughts and numbs his mind. He turns his head and vomits over the side of the table.

The sharp, acidic smell of bile gives his fear a scent and does nothing to help his roiling nausea.

He turns away as much as possible and whimpers.

“Oh, come now,” a smooth, accented voice cuts through his panic. “She hasn’t even started yet.”

Shiro twists again, eyes wide and breathing jerky. A tall, thin man with long white hair tied back into a low ponytail descends a staircase tucked away at the side of the room. He’s wearing a white lab coat and smirking down at Shiro.

“It is going to be far worse than anything you could be thinking of now. Best prepare yourself, or you’ll never make it out of here.” He pauses on the last stair, thoughtful. “Then again, you likely won’t make it out of here anyway.”

Horror swallows all of Shiro’s senses and he thrashes on the table, pulling desperately at his arms and legs.

The man stands beside him and watches with a clinical eye.

~*~*~*~*~

They plan a recon mission—not a rescue, despite what Keith desperately wants. If they get caught, they’ll never get back inside, and they need to be able to figure out the best way to get Shiro out. He knows that, it makes sense, but it still nearly kills him to argue with Lance who wants to rush in with figurative guns blazing.

So does Keith, but they have to be smart.

They make it as perfect as they can, each of them playing a part, but the first leg of it depends on Hunk—if he can’t do it, the whole thing falls apart.

“No pressure,” Lance says as he slaps him on the back. Hunk turns green and everyone scrambles for a bin, but he swallows it down and smiles wanly.

“I got this,” he says in a shaky tone. Keith reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder in a mere shadow of the hundreds of times Shiro’s done the same for all of them. It shocks him when it works—Hunk straightens his back and meets Keith’s eyes. “I’ve got this.”

A week later, Keith finds Hunk sitting in front of his computer with his hair in fists and wild, bloodshot eyes, surrounded by cookies.  Frustration flares through Keith, but he quickly tamps it down so Hunk won’t see. He’s been forced to get better at it over the past year as his impulse control was abducted and he only has the memory it to help him through.

It’s been a mixed success, so he ducks into the kitchen before Hunk looks up and meets his eyes. His anger won’t help anyone.

He skirts around Coran and Pidge as they go to technobabble and troubleshoot with Hunk, and steals a cookie off of the counter. Allura and Lance are both in the kitchen running over the particulars of the plan for the hundredth time.

As Keith wanders over to them, Lance is saying, “I’ve tested it.” His arms are crossed and his eyebrow twitches, irritated, finally, at Allura’s persistent questioning. “So, yes, I am sure I can do it without them catching me.” She glares at him and he meets her glare with a stubborn jut of his lip.

She cracks first—her glare softens as her eyes fill with tears, and she looks away, head bowed. Lance immediately loosens his stance and scoots closer to her, putting an arm around her shoulders while she wipes at her face.

“I’m sorry, Lance. I just wish I could do more. It was my research they were stealing when he was taken. And who knows what is happening to him now.”

“It’s not your fault, doc,” Lance says as he jostles her lightly. Keith watches him intently. “It was Shiro’s job to stop them, and he would’ve anyway cause that’s just what Shiro does.” He looks up and meets Keith’s gaze, “We’re going to get him back.”

Emotion catches in Keith’s throat, and he breaks the connection to stare instead at the bottom of the fridge. He can’t handle this right now.

He coughs to clear his throat and looks back at Allura, nodding in agreement with Lance. “We’re not going to give up on him.”

Never.

“And it’ll override the locking mechanism!” Hunk exclaims from the other room, breaking the rising intensity of the moment, and it’s followed by the slap of a three-way high five. “Team Punk and the Coranic, at it again. Oh yeah!”

Lance’s eyes sparkle as he grins at the other two. “Sounds like Operation Find Shiro is a go. Wanna go watch Hunk do an embarrassing victory dance?”

Allura smiles, “The only embarrassing dancer in this group is Coran. Let’s go celebrate with them.”

Keith nods, “And tomorrow, we find Shiro.”

~*~*~INTERLUDE~*~*~*~

Shiro’s arm is gone.

Or. Well. It’s not gone. He knows where it is.

It’s right there, in front of him.

In that tank.

Or—it used to be his arm.

Now he’s not sure what it is. Test subject. Stage one.

His dominant hand.

A—fin?

It was his arm and now it’s a thing glowing with bioluminescence in a jar under blue lights.

There’s webbing between the fingers and…scales? at the elbows.

It’s a warning of what’s going to happen to him.

Haggar hasn’t said so, but Lotor did.

She was happy.

It was a breakthrough.

Whatever she did integrated with flesh—his—not his?—flesh—and the tissue is still living.

In a jar.

Not attached to Shiro.

She’s going to do the same to him, Lotor said. She’s going to go bigger next time.

He’s going to be her weapon, Lotor said.

Lotor’s not supposed to be here.

Is Lotor here?

He only comes when everyone else is gone. Haggar doesn’t like when he’s here.

She gets angrier.

It’s worse when she’s angry.

Shiro doesn’t know how long he’s been here.

He doesn’t know where here is.

He knows he’s tied down—strapped. Strapped down.

It goes across his chest, now. It can’t tie to his arms.

Arm.

His head droops.

They drugged him recently.

Something must be happening.

They always drug him when something is happening.

They didn’t the first time, and now he has a scar on his face.

They started after that.

Now his arm is in a jar. Just over there.

It is purple with bioluminescence sometimes.

They drugged him.

Something’s happening.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s happening tonight.

Keith adjusts his uniform hat and fingers the keycard in his pocket. It’s Hunk’s Skeleton Key-Card, and it should be able to get him into any lab in the place.

First, though, he has to do his job. He pulls his hand out of his pocket and slips out of his truck, waving perfunctorily to the other driver pulling out of the garage. He’s been short-tempered and irritable all morning, which isn’t that completely abnormal for him, so no one has questioned it, but he needs to draw as little attention to himself as possible.

He can’t do that if he’s snapping at and punching all of his superiors.

He takes a deep breath and rolls open the back of his truck to load up his dolly for the first delivery—in the lab furthest from Haggar’s. There’s only so much temptation he can fight.

He sighs.

It’s going to be a long day.

He drags himself through it, purposefully taking as long as possible on every route and delivery to have an excuse to be the last person there, which has the unfortunate side effect of making time pass even slower.

By the time he finally waves goodbye to the only other person left, he’s ready to tear the place down, but he made it. Phase one is done.

Phase two starts when Lance gives him the go-ahead that everyone else is gone.

“How long are you thinking, Lance?” he grouses, hoping it won’t be too long. He won’t be able to stand it.

“Hold your horses, hothead,” Lance says, “I, like, just got here. Give me a minute.”

Keith drums on the steering wheel and holds back a sharp comment with increasing difficulty as the silence extends.

“Well?” he bursts out, his patience for the day long gone.

“Do you know how big this place in? It takes a minute, Keith,” Lance says, annoyed. “Lucky for you, looks like this place is pretty much empty. Even Haggar left early. What is this? Half-day Friday? Guys, were we not invited to something?”

“Not the time, Lance,” Pidge cuts in before Keith can yell. “You ready, Keith?”

Keith swings out of the cab, “I’ve been ready.”

“It’s go time, team!” Hunk says. “Let’s hope we don’t all get arrested or trapped in Haggar’s lab to have cruel experiments forced on us or—”

“Hunk! Really not the time,” Lance says, and Keith does his best to ignore the conversation, grabbing his dolly and the fake delivery they’d prepared.

It’s a short journey to Haggar’s lab, and he takes in the plain, grey metal door that could be one of his final barriers to Shiro. He holds his breath as he pulls out the keycard and swipes it in front of the pad.

It beeps twice, and the red light along the top turns green. The lock disengages with a click, and a smile breaks out across his face.

“I’m in.”

The others erupt into cheers in his ear.

He pushes the door open and tunes them out, slipping inside and carefully closing the door after he pushes the dolly through.

“I don’t have eyes on you now, Red One, but I’ll give you a heads up if anyone’s coming,” Lance says and Keith pauses.

“I thought we voted against codenames.”

“You voted against codenames. The rest of us overruled you.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I’m still not calling you Razzle Dazzle,” he says, ignoring Lance’s spluttering “That was a joke!” as he stashes the dolly off to the side of the door and scrutinizes the lab.

It looks like any other lab—a hood, work benches, desks, computers, grey walls with shelves, circular swirl patterns on the floor.

“This could take a while,” he says, stepping further into the room and hoping something jumps out at him.

The entrance won’t be something obvious, or something used a lot—Haggar wouldn’t want someone to accidentally find it, after all.

It probably won’t be in the middle of the room, either, for best utilization of space.

His eyes fall on Haggar’s desk, near the other side of the room from the door. It’s a deviation from the basic layout of the other labs—a standing desk with a 3-monitor setup facing so that she can oversee the rest of the lab space. Except it’s not quite centered, too close to the side wall. He follows the swirls and loops around the desk thoughtfully.

They’re not a design he typically expects in a lab, and none of the other labs have anything other than a normal grid pattern. Haggar is the boss’s wife, but she strikes Keith as more minimalist than elaborate based off of the lack of anything personal on her desk. So why would she have specifically designed floors for her workspace?

The spirals whirl out and back in, but as he traces each one, they all seem to start right below her desk.

Her off-centered, seemingly randomly placed desk.

“Hey, Pidge,” he says, “Where would that wall in the basement be exactly if you compare it to the lab?”

There’s silence as Pidge searches her blueprints and does some quick math, “Roughly 8.75 feet in, give or take. Why? What did you find?”

Keith paces forward, surety settling across his shoulders, “I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when I find out.”

He runs his hands over its smooth surface and they glide easily without any disruption or catches. He feels under the keyboard and along the sides, crawling under the desk to examine the bottom. The wood is completely unblemished at first glance. His eyebrows furrow as he studies it more intently; if there is a secret switch, it will be somewhere easily accessible and fairly unobtrusive…He smirks when his fingers find a symbol etched into the corner of the desk.

Like that.

The stylized symbol gives easily when he presses on it, and there’s a quiet click followed by silence. With barely a sound, the desk spins away from him as the floor moves along mechanized tracks and folds in on the swirl pattern of the floor to reveal a staircase leading down towards an eerie blue glow.

Keith takes one last glance around, adjusts his hat, and says in a steady tone, “I found the lab. I’m going in.”

“Be careful, Keith,” Allura says, and he creeps slowly into the dim room.

It’s revealed in bits and pieces as he descends: desks and some kind of machines along the walls, large tanks occasionally interrupting the counter space with what look like dormant, giant fish embryos floating in their glowing blue water. Those seem to be the major source of light.

He steps off the staircase and a whirring behind him lets him know the trapdoor is closing. Water splashes, and his head snaps to the dark, looming shape directly ahead. It takes up most of the space in the room, and it’s not lit like the other tanks, so it's impossible to make out what might be inside.

There’s a dark shadow of a suggestion of movement, and speckles of purple light flicker in and out of view. He can’t get a great look at it, but it almost seems shaped in some kind of pattern.

There’s definitely a creature in there, and his stomach turns to imagine what Haggar could be keeping in that tank.

He walks further into the lab, and lights trigger automatically for the area just before him, blue emergency runners preceding his footsteps until he stands directly in front of the tank.

Its lights click on and Keith’s heart stops, his breath stuttering as he releases it around one word.

“Shiro.”

~*~*~INTERLUDE~*~*~

The injection burns as it goes in, fire spreading from the thick of his thigh to consume his entire body. It sears across his skin, burns down to the bone, and races along his spine. Everywhere it goes, pain follows.

He screams.

His back arches off of the table but he can’t escape it; it’s inside him.

Fresh spears of pain erupt out of his back, and he lurches to the side as something is suddenly there, between the table and his back. The pressure hurts him as he crushes it. Whatever’s there. He moans as the fire flares again and embers scatter themselves across his back, his skin sitting under lines of burning coals and heated knives.

The world goes white in agony, and his ears ring. Sound goes sideways for a second and returns muffled.

He’s still screaming, his throat raw of his own doing. He can’t stop.

Sharp sharp sharp slices up between all of his fingers and the skin stretches, pulling tight and filling in new grooves. He clenches his hand into a fist and blunt nails dig deep into his palm.

Another spear shoots out of his elbow, and the itch of blood trickles down his arm. He lets out another shout, weaker now.

Tears run unimpeded down his face, and he presses it into his shoulder.

The pain dulls, and he tries to lean back, wondering if it’s over. A bright flare reminds him of the fresh wounds and spears waiting at his spine.

He rolls away again.

Knives carve into his sides.

He screams.

Iron hands replace the restraints on his ankles, and his wrist is freed but there are hands on his shoulders.

He’s lifted off of the table. He doesn’t—he can’t care what they’re planning. He thrashes only to escape the pain. It doesn’t work.

For a brief moment, the hands under his arms, on his ankles are his only anchor to a world lost in pain.

They let go.

He falls and lands with a cold splash that does nothing to quench the fire. His heart pounds.

He wants to gasp as his side sears, but he can’t. There’s water. His sides heave anyway. Oxygen floods his system, but he’s not breathing.

Nothing makes sense.

And then it doesn’t matter as his skin liquefies.

Skin, muscle, fat, it all feels like it’s sloughing away.

He curls into a ball, wanting to touch, not wanting to touch. Not wanting to know. He presses into himself as if that will lessen anything.

With his legs so close to his chest, he feels it when the space between them disappears. They fuse together, skin stretching over the expanse.

He stares with wide eyes through the red water as two legs become one. As his feet fuse and stretch and thin and he can see through them.

Black blooms at his waist and spreads down, covering once tanned skin.

It’s dying. His legs are going to fall off. That’s necrotic tissue.

He flicks his legs, swirls his arm, tries to get away but the black shape moves. It responds to him. It’s still part of him.

His hand skitters over it and it’s hard and rough and scaly. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It aches, but the fire is gone.

They’ve burnt out the human in him.

He moves his foot and the end of the black thing moves instead.

Something taps on the glass of the tank, and he flinches away from the vibrations in the water that echo in his head.

“Subject 117-9875. Stage 2: success.”

(art by: [radishcakeholes](http://radishcakeholes.tumblr.com/post/176125126937/heres-my-piece-for-the-voltrongenminibang))

~*~*~*~*~

Keith steps forward in a daze, placing a hand on the glass and struggling to come to terms with what is in front of him.

Shiro’s hair is long, and the front has turned white. There’s a scar across his nose and a collar around his throat. He’s shirtless.

His legs are gone.

He tracks down Shiro’s bare abdomen to where it seamlessly transitions to a fish tail covered in scales so darkly black that they absorb the light instead of reflecting it. Above his hips are actual gills.

A webbed hand presses against the glass in front of him. If the barrier wasn’t there, they would be touching. His eyes fly to Shiro’s face—briefly catching on the fin-like protuberances where his ears used to be—and finds a small, sad smile. Keith’s heart plummets.

“Shiro.”

Words fail him. He’s been striving all year for this moment, but now that it’s here…words are inadequate. Shiro is just as speechless in front of him, which is more surprising—he always knows the right thing to say.

His smile spreads and his voices ripples through the water, distorted but understandable, “You found me.”

Keith’s eyes burn, and his chest tightens. He steps closer to the tank, opening his mouth only to be cut off by a click as the door whirs open above them.

He spins to face whoever is coming in, eyes wide.

“Hide,” Shiro garbles at him, and he immediately slides around the side of the tank to crouch in its shadows, hoping they’re dark enough to disguise him. He can’t do anything to turn out the lights, and that is what the newcomer first notices.

Footsteps pause on the stairs and an accented voice calls out sharply, “Who’s here?”

Shiro’s fist—the left one, the only one, Keith notices with a sick jolt—slams against the glass, and it’s met with a chuckle.

“Do you truly expect me to believe it was you that somehow triggered the lights? Trapped in there like a pet fish?” The voice moves closer, and Keith’s blood boils as he comes into view.

Pompous, long-haired, rich boy asshole.

Asshole is shaking his head at Shiro even as his sharp gaze takes in the rest of the lab. Keith presses closer into the shadows.

“Who are you protecting?” His eyes sweep towards Keith.

Shiro bursts into a flurry of motion, and the newcomer jumps as he circles the tank in an instant with a few forceful beats of his tail, picking up speed as he keeps going. The display of his strength and power is mesmerizing. His muscles bunch and ripple, and Keith can now see the way black scales scatter over his back like constellations.

His eyes trip over where his right arm should be, and Shiro’s face is contorted into an angry but determined mask that Keith has never seen before.

The visitor stops a little ways away from the tank, watching with a deepening frown and rising concern.

Without warning, Shiro deviates his course and shoots towards the top of the tank, easily clearing the four feet of open air above the water to slam his shoulder into the cover and send it rattling.  It budges an inch before falling closed again as Shiro splashes back into the water.

“You’ve been holding back,” the man says flatly, and Shiro glares. An unfriendly smile breaks out across his face, “Honerva would be pleased to learn that.”

Shiro doesn’t reply, just starts swimming around the tank again, which wipes the smile away. The man strides swiftly to a nearby console and his hand hovers threateningly over a button, eyes following Shiro. “I’ll use th—” he cuts himself off, his gaze now directly on Keith and he knows he’s caught. “This is who you’re protecting.”

The lies fly through Keith’s head—stick to the plan, stick to the plan. You were making a delivery. The door was open. You got curious. You’re sorry. It won’t happen again. You won’t tell anyone.

His friends’ voices echo with the excuses he’s supposed to say. That he’s going to say.

The man’s hand falls and Shiro jerks to a stop, hand flying to his throat and body convulsing as his face contorts in pain. The hand lifts, and he goes limp, floating listlessly in the water, eyes dazed.

Keith stops thinking, mind utterly blank with rage. He lunges forward and punches the man responsible straight in the nose. He follows with a roundhouse kick to his temple and lays him out flat on the ground in a groaning heap.

As soon as he’s away from the button, Keith’s back at the tank, “Shiro! Shiro, are you ok?”

Shiro is slow to recover as residual spasms twitch through his body. He brings his hand to his head as Keith presses helplessly on the glass, but when he shakes his head and looks over to Keith, his eyes are clear.

He smiles, and Keith’s heart breaks.

“I’ll get you out,” he swears, and Shiro nods in complete faith. Fuck the plan; he can’t leave him here.

He tears himself away from the tank and searches for anything useful while he taps on his ear and hisses, “Lance.”

Shiro’s head jerks in his direction, eyes wide, before he looks around the room as if he’s expecting Lance to pop out from a corner.

There’s no reply, and Keith takes his earpiece out and shakes it a couple of times, “Lance!”

Silence. Not even a hiss of static. Their radios must not work down here—that’s probably why Lance didn’t warn him about the scientist coming down.

Whatever. He’ll deal with that later.

He spots an ‘In Case of Emergencies’ axe on the wall and grins, “Perfect.” Taking it out of the glass encasement, he hefts its solid weight in his hands and strides back purposefully.

“Stay clear,” he warns, heaving back and ready to swing.

“Keith!” Shiro calls, garbled through the water but unmistakably his name. Keith stumbles as he aborts his swing and meets Shiro’s amused gaze. He points upward, and Keith follows the path over to a set of metal stairs winding around the side of the tank up to a large padlock.

“Oh.”

Shiro chuckles, and bubbles erupt from his mouth. Keith pretends to ignore him, turning away to hide his smile as he takes the stairs two at a time until he’s level with the padlock. It takes three direct hits—and an extra couple that gouge out dents in the cover—but the padlock falls to the ground in pieces.

Keith rips open the the tank, reaching for Shiro who is right there to grab his hand. There’s webbing between his fingers and his hand is chilled from the water but he grabs tight and refuses to let go. With some help from a quick burst of Shiro’s tail, they manage to pull him part-way out of the tank. Once he clears the water, though, they struggle to get him the rest of the way out. Shiro’s tail and one hand trapped in Keith’s means he’s not much help.

He adjusts his grip so that he’s got both arms wrapped under Shiro’s armpits and Shiro’s arm is tight around his back while Keith pulls. It’s not going well, and Keith nearly pitches them both back into the water when Lance whisper-yells “Keith!” from the top of the staircase.

He twists, breathless from holding Shiro up, and glares up at him. “What?”

Lance makes a face. “Your radio is out, I came—holy shit, is that Shiro?!”

Hands slipping on wet skin, Keith says, “Yes,” through gritted teeth, and Shiro gives a pitiful sort of wave behind Keith’s back. Lance groans.

“This was so not the plan.”

Keith doesn’t bother to answer. The figure at the base of the tank gives another moan and rolls over in an attempt to push himself up.

Lance groans again. “What did you do to Lotor?”

So that’s Zarkon’s kid. Keith huffs, and fails to pull Shiro from the tank. “Are you going to help or not?”

“Oh, right.” Lance dashes down the stairs, across the lab, and up to Keith’s side, sliding in under Shiro’s left arm and letting Keith shift to under his right shoulder. Together, they’re able to drag his tail over the edge where it flops against the floor.

“Sorry,” he says. “Not gonna be much help for you with the whole walking thing.”

“Can you breathe out of water?” Keith asks, concerned.

“You have a tail?” Lance exclaims.

“I can,” Shiro says, and with a sidelong glance at Lance, adds dryly, “Do I really have to answer that?” Lance flushes red with embarrassment that quickly morphs into rage.

“She’s going to pay for that.”

Keith nods. Shiro sighs.

“Can we just get out of—” he breaks off with a shout as his body spasms, slipping out of their hold, and he crashes to the metal of the staircase, his teeth clenched in pain.

Lotor leans heavily on the control panel, hand on the button controlling the collar and a vicious glare leveled at Keith.

Lance leaps down the stairs and pulls out his taser in one smooth movement. He lands lightly, already aiming, and nails Lotor in the chest. He goes down hard, hitting his forehead on the console on the way down, and Keith can’t bring himself to care.

From his stony expression, neither can Lance. “Shiro okay?”

His eyelids are fluttering but he’s breathing fine. “He’ll be alright.”

Lance nods and comes back, helping to carry Shiro’s dead weight down the tank’s stairs where they pause at the sound of retching.

“We should do something about that.”

“Watch him for a second,” Keith says and slides out from under Shiro’s shoulder.

“Hey!” Unable to get a good grip around his waist because of the fins lining his back, Lance buckles to the floor with Shiro leaning against him.

Keith studies the control panel, shoving Lotor to the side so he can stand in front of it. Luckily, it’s labeled, so it’s easy to find the release button. He hits it with satisfaction, and Shiro’s collar clatters to the floor.

“Toss it here.”

Lance flings it to him, and he crouches down to snap it around Lotor’s neck.

“Let’s go.” He takes up his spot at Shiro’s side, and the two haul the groggy man to the stairs and up out of his prison.

As soon as they clear the door, Pidge and Hunk are yelling in their ears.

Lance squawks at the noise and Keith shouts, “Guys, guys, cut it out. We’re here. We’re fine. We’ve got Shiro and we need a distraction. Can you do that?”

“Shiro!” Pidge says joyfully.

“Is he alright?” Hunk asks, and Keith exchanges a look with Lance.

“It’s complicated. He’s fine. Can you do it?”

Pidge scoffs. “Can we do it.”

An alarm blares in the distance. Keith grins.

“Thanks, Pidge.”

“We also need a van,” Lance cuts in. “Mine’s too small and they track the trucks.”

“So needy,” Pidge says.

“Hunk’s Super Soccer Parent Van will be on its way momentarily,” Hunk chimes in.

“Great. Also, do Allura or Coran have a place we can go? We can’t go back to our apartments.” Lance glances back at Shiro’s tail. “Somewhere with water is better.”

“I have the perfect place,” Allura says. “Coran will send you the address and we’ll meet you there. Good luck.”

They awkwardly hobble to the door as Shiro slowly waking up between them.

“I disabled the cameras for now, so we should be good for a little while. We’ve gotta go though, before they reset the system,” Lance says, out of breath.

Keith nods and picks up speed. “We got an ETA on that ride, Hunk?,” he asks.

“5 minutes?”

“We’d be there already if you drove faster. We’re the getaway vehicle, you don’t have to full stop at stop signs!” Pidge yells.

“It’s the law!”

“It’s a getaway car!”

“Exactly! You don’t wanting to draw attention by illegal driving activities!”

“Just step on it, Hunk,” Keith grits out.

“And stop yelling in our ears,” Lance says.

Another alarm sounds just overhead, and they trudge in the opposite direction, Shiro’s tail dragging along behind them.

By the time they reach the front door, Hunk and Pidge are waiting for them, hanging out of the open windows of Hunk’s van.

“Load up, guys! Hey, Shiro,” Hunk calls. “Wait, is that a tail?”

“A little help, here?” Lance says.

Hunk mumbles, “Oh, right,” and fumbles his way out of the car to rush to their side.

“Hey, Hunk,” Shiro says, and Hunk’s smile is watery but genuine.

“It’s so good to see you, man.” He carefully scoops him out of Lance and Keith’s arms, one arm under his tail, the other just above where the spiny fin along his back ends. Once situated, he turns and runs to the van where Pidge is waving them in. Lance jumps in after them, tucking himself under Shiro’s tail in the back seat while Keith slides into the driver’s seat.

“Let’s get out of here.”

He peels out of the parking lot, ignoring Hunk’s offended shout, and slams on the gas to put as much distance between Shiro and this hellhole as fast as possible.

“Who’s got Coran’s address?” he calls to the backseat, and Pidge scrambles up to the front to sit shotgun.

“Keep going this direction,” she says, studying the GPS she’s holding.

Hunk peers out the back window, “There’s no one behind us, I think you can slow down.”

The back window shatters, and Lance, Hunk, and Pidge scream.

“Someone’s shooting at us!”

“I take it back, drive faster, Keith!”

“Take this right, here!”

Keith slams on the brake and jerks the wheel to the right, taking the turn at the last second. The back of the car fishtails for a second before it straightens back out. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees two black SUVs behind them with the windows rolled down. One of the passengers is a huge, hairy man and he’s aiming a gun at them.

Keith speeds up.

“Keith, go left here!” Shiro says, and Keith immediately listens, the car screeching around the left turn and speeding up again. “You know where we are?”

He grins—he does. And he knows exactly what Shiro is thinking. “Time to teach them what it's like to grow up on the wrong side of the tracks.” Glancing in the rearview mirror, he catches Shiro’s smile, and presses his foot harder on the accelerator.

A train whistle sounds close by and Lance pales. “Uh, guys.” Keith ignores him. “Guys!”

“You’re not really gonna do it, are you? Are you, Keith?” Hunk says.

“No no no no no,” Pidge adds as the train comes into view and Keith shows no sign of stopping.

They all scream as the van flies right over the tracks, clearing them just seconds before the train blows by, whistle shrieking.

Keith meets Shiro’s eyes again, a wide grin on both of their faces, and says “Gotta love a train that sticks to its schedule.”

Shiro laughs.

Hunk throws up out the window.

~*~*~~*~*~

The rest of their hours long drive is practically leisurely, although Hunk complains the whole way about the damage Keith must have done to his car and how they nearly all died. Shiro is quiet, but the smile never fully leaves his face.

Coran and Allura are waiting for them in front of a modest sized beach house when they pull up, and grins split their faces at the sight of Shiro in the window.

Allura’s quickly slips away and her eyes fill with tears when Hunk carries him out of the car.

“Oh, Shiro,” she says, hands in front of her mouth in horror. “I’m so sorry. This was because of my research.”

“It’s not your fault, doc,” Shiro says, reaching his hand out to her. She goes easily and he pulls her into as much of a hug as he can while being held in Hunk’s arms. “It’s not your fault, Allura.”

She nods and wipes her face, determination settling across her features.

“So where can I put him down?” Hunk asks, and then realizes what he said. “Not that I mind carrying you, Shiro, it’s just that you’re heavy and my arms are tired and your scales are kind of sharp…”

“We have a pool in the back,” Allura offers, but Shiro shakes his head.

“No. No pools. No tanks,” he says, his face pained. “I can’t. Not anymore.”

Sadness colors the edge of Allura’s understanding smile. “Of course.”

“So, to the beach, then?” Hunk asks, already edging towards the gated path down to the sand. 

“To the beach!” Lance agrees, jogging ahead to open the gate for Hunk. “Come on, guys, let’s go move Shiro in.” An undercurrent of pain lines his tone, but he smiles wide and waves them through with an exaggerated gesture.

It’s a bittersweet parade that trails after Hunk and Shiro.

Keith’s eyebrows furrow as he tries to work out the solution to this new problem.

Lance speaks up from the back of the train, “You know, I’ve missed living by the ocean. This’ll be great. The city was really starting to bum me out.”

Keith whips his head around to look at Lance, who continues to saunter with his arms casually behind his head. He eyes Keith slyly.

“They’re gonna really need me, since Keith can’t live on his own.”

“Excuse me? I can’t live on my own?” Keith glares at Lance, who smirks back.

Keith moves violently towards him but is stopped as Shiro says in a tired tone, “You guys can’t afford a beach house. It’s fine. I’ll be okay.”

Keith and Pidge simultaneously make a disgruntled noise, mutiny lining their faces before Coran cuts in.

“Luckily, we were looking for renters for this house! I think you’ll find the price is very reasonable. The owners will be coming for a visit every now and then, perhaps rather frequently, but I hope that won’t be a problem.”

“We all need new jobs anyway,” Hunk says. “But seriously, can we walk faster? My back is killing me.”

“Give him here, my boy,” Coran says, and scoops Shiro out of Hunk’s arms, beating a quick clip towards the sand.

Keith watches the back of Shiro’s head.

When the rest of them catch up, Coran has deposited Shiro at the edge of the water, his tail in the waves while he sits waiting for them. Coran stands by his side.

“I won’t go far,” he says, the apology hanging heavy in his tone, “I just can’t be in a cage anymore.”

Keith sits beside him, leaning gently into his shoulder. Allura kneels at his other side, and beyond her, Hunk, Lance, and Pidge flop into the sand, too.

“We get it, Shiro,” Keith says quietly, “And we’ll be right here.”

Allura puts her hand over his, drawing Shiro’s attention. Her eyes blaze out of her determined expression, and she says, “I will find a way to fix this, Shiro. I swear it. I will fix this.”

The stars reflect off the ocean and the darkness hides the expression in Shiro’s eyes.

“Thanks, Allura.”

It feels like an ending, but no one wants to be the first to move away. They all sit in the silence broken only by the sound of the waves as the tides shift and they wait for sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this! It was my first foray into body horror-style writing there, and I don't hate it. It was a fun challenge. 
> 
> Who picked up on the (terrible) allusion in the title? Corruption of the Fundamental--DNA. The fundamentals of life. Get it? She messed with his DNA. Yes, it's awful. I like it.
> 
> Thanks again to radishcakeholes for the inspiring art to base this off of, scifikimmi for trying to brush off all the dirt and make it pretty, and the Gen Mini Bang, for being awesome.
> 
> Reviews are always appreciated, and if you wanna chat, I'm on Tumblr at [thehouseofthebrave](thehouseofthebrave.tumblr.com).


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